Ironic Compliments Research Articles

“Irony is easy to understand ”: The role of emoji in irony detection

Abstract In face-to-face conversations, interlocutors might recognize the ironic intent of a speaker relying on the incongruity of the comment relative to a situation, and on irony markers such as the ironic tone of voice and specific facial expressions. In instant messaging, acoustical and visual cues are typically absent, and the context is not always shared. We investigated the role of emoji as cues to detect irony, hypothesizing that they might play the role of the conversational context. We administered to 156 Italian adults a questionnaire, presenting them with WhatsApp messages followed by an emoji, which was congruent or incongruent with the (non-)evaluative positive or negative comment, and found that evaluative incongruent items were rated as more ironic, and that incongruent positive messages were more easily recognized as ironic (criticisms) compared to incongruent negative messages (ironic compliments), in line with the asymmetry of affect hypothesis.

The role of auditory and visual cues in the interpretation of Mandarin ironic speech

PurposeIrony is a form of non-literal language. Its decoding may require receivers to use information from both the auditory (e.g., prosody) and visual (e.g., facial expressions) modalities. However, little is known about the role of cues in different modalities in understanding irony. Therefore, the present study examined the relative contributions of auditory and visual cues in the interpretation of Mandarin ironic speech. MethodSixty-three native Mandarin speakers participated in a perception experiment in which two types of irony (ironic criticisms and ironic compliments) and their literal counterparts (sincere criticisms and sincere compliments) were presented in audio-only, visual-only, and audio-visual conditions. A two-alternative forced-choice task was adopted to measure the listeners’ interpretation of ironic expressions. ResultsIronic criticisms and ironic compliments were interpreted best in the visual-only condition as compared to the other conditions. Furthermore, the participants could employ auditory cues alone to accurately interpret ironic criticisms (accuracy significantly above chance), but not ironic compliments. ConclusionsThis study demonstrated a dominant role of visual information in interpreting Mandarin ironic speech, while the role of auditory information is contingent on the type of irony.

The role of mentalizing capacity and ecological language diversity on irony comprehension in bilingual adults.

Diverse bilingual experiences have implications for language comprehension, including pragmatic elements such as verbal irony. Irony comprehension is shaped by an interplay of linguistic, cognitive, and social factors, including individual differences in bilingual experience. We examined the relationship between individual differences related to bilingualism, specifically, the capacity to understand others’ mental states and ambient exposure to language diversity, on irony comprehension. We tested 54 healthy bilingual adults, living in a linguistically diverse region—Montréal, Canada—on an irony comprehension task. This task involved reading positive and negative short stories that concluded with an ironic or literal statement, which were rated on appropriateness and perceived irony. While both irony forms were rated as less appropriate and more ironic than literal statements, ironic criticisms (following a negative context) were rated as more appropriate and higher in perceived irony than ironic compliments (following a positive context). As expected, these ratings varied as a function of individual differences in mentalizing and neighborhood language diversity. Greater mentalizing patterned with more appropriate ratings to ironic statements in high language diversity neighborhoods and with less appropriate ratings to ironic statements in low language diversity neighborhoods. Perceived irony ratings to ironic compliments increased with mentalizing as neighborhood language diversity increased. These results indicate that pragmatic language comprehension and its social cognitive underpinnings may be environmentally contextualized processes.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13421-022-01349-4.

The atypical pattern of irony comprehension in autistic children

AbstractNonliteral language understanding has always been recognized as problematic in autistic individuals. We ran a study on 26 autistic children (mean age = 7.3 years) and 2 comparison groups of typically developing children, 1 matched for chronological age, and 1 of younger peers (mean age = 6.11 years) matched for linguistic abilities, aiming at assessing their understanding of ironic criticisms and compliments, and identifying the cognitive and linguistic factors that may underpin this ability. Autistic participants lagged behind the comparison groups in the comprehension of both types of irony, and their performance was related to mindreading and linguistic abilities. Significant correlations were found between first-order Theory of Mind (ToM) and both types of irony, between second-order ToM and ironic compliments, and between linguistic abilities and ironic criticisms. The autistic group displayed an interesting, and previously unattested in the literature, bimodal distribution: the great majority of them (n = 18) displayed a very poor performance in irony understanding, whereas some (n = 6) were at ceiling. We discuss these results in terms of two different profiles of autistic children.

I was being sarcastic!: The effect of foreign accent and political ideology on irony (mis)understanding

Misunderstood ironic intents may injure the conversation and impede connecting with others. Prior research suggests that ironic compliments, a rarer type of irony, are considered less ironic when spoken with a foreign accent. Using more ecologically-valid stimuli with natural prosodic cues, we found that this effect also applied to ironic criticisms, not just to ironic compliments. English native speakers (N = 96) listened to dialogs between Canadian English speakers and their foreign-accented peers, rating targets on multiple scales (irony, certainty in the speaker's intent, appropriateness, and offensiveness). Generalized additive mixed modelling showed that 1) ironic comments were rated lower for irony when foreign-accented, whereas literal comments were unaffected by accent; 2) the listener's political orientation, but not empathy or need for cognitive closure, modulated irony detection accuracy. The results are discussed in terms of linguistic expectations, social distance, cultural stereotypes, and personality differences.

Second language experience impacts first language irony comprehension among bilingual adults.

Recently, core components of irony processing (e.g., mental-state reasoning, executive control, and metalinguistic awareness) have been tentatively linked to bilingual experience. Thus, we investigated whether bilingual experience modulates irony comprehension during first language (L1) reading and also how bilingual adults comprehend irony in positive versus negative contexts (i.e., ironic compliments vs. criticisms, respectively). We deliver 3 main findings. First, bilinguals are faster at processing ironic criticisms than ironic compliments, and they find ironic criticisms more sensible than ironic compliments in their L1, much like past findings among monolinguals. Second, individual differences in bilingual experience modulate comprehension of ironic statements. Specifically, readers with high global second language (L2) proficiency find ironic statements more sensible than readers with low global L2 proficiency, regardless of the valence of the preceding context. Third, individual differences in global L2 proficiency further predict the speed of L1 irony comprehension: following a positive scenario, greater global L2 proficiency patterns with faster processing of irony compared to literal statements. Together, these data suggest that second language experience may be linked to irony processing in the first language. While the precise mechanism underlying this relationship remains open, potential sources may be rooted in flexible social cognition or executive functions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

COMPLIMENT AS A FORM OF SOCIAL INTERACTION

The aim of the article is to analyze the speech act compliment as an integral part of successful interpersonal communication based on the principles and maxims of speech communication of G. P. Grice, R. Lakoff, J. Leech, and in the context of politeness theory of P. Brown and S. Levinson, as well as the study of compliment as a manifestation of conventional, etiquette politeness. The study of this aspect of compliments is carried out within the linguopragmatic approach by the method of continuous sampling, the method of intent analysis and the method of quantitative calculation. The article shows exactly how compliments are realized in the plane of the principles of speech communication and how we distinguish sincere compliments from ironic ones. Therefore, we believe that the expression of ironic compliments violates the principles and maxims of speech communication, because it destroys the communicative balance and harmonious communication between interlocutors. In the proposed work, we consider first of all sincere compliments, which are not included in the Face Threatening Acts according to the classification of P. Brown and S. Levinson. We hold the opinion that ironic compliments only formally, thanks to the tokens of positive evaluation resemble a compliment, in fact, the purpose of the speaker is to offend the interlocutor. The main marker of sincerity is the meaning constructed by the linguistic consciousness of the communicators in the discourse and implemented through a compliment to show a positive, friendly attitude to the interlocutor, express a positive emotional assessment, show good intentions and adhere to the principle of cooperation to preserve your face and the face of the partner. We also distinguish etiquette compliments, which are an element of the conventional strategy of politeness, phatic communication, due to certain socio-cultural norms and rules of etiquette, they are clichéd, ritual, uninformative, and, therefore, do not involve the sincerity of the speaker. As a result of the analysis of the factual material, it is established that such compliments are not inherent in dramatic works of the 18.-20th centuries.

The comprehension of ironic criticisms and ironic compliments in individuals with Down syndrome: Adding another piece to the puzzle

Comprehending irony is a complex task: typically developing (TD) children start recognizing what the speaker meant (typically the opposite of what was said) at approximately six years of age, with ironic criticisms (the more frequent form of irony) being understood earlier and better than ironic compliments. Irony comprehension has been linked to Theory of Mind (ToM) abilities, which are in turn predicted by language competence, and with a possible role of social experiences to account for the asymmetry between criticisms and compliments. We tested irony comprehension in a group of 13 children and adolescents with Down syndrome (DS, mean age 13;6; range: 10;9–15;3) and compared their performance with a control group of younger TD children (mean age: 4;10; range: 3;2–6;6) matched for nonverbal mental age and measured their linguistic and ToM abilities. Individuals with DS have severely compromised linguistic skills but relatively strong social abilities. Our aim was twofold: we wanted to investigate higher level pragmatic abilities in DS, an area that is understudied, and to disentangle the contribution of linguistic, ToM and social factors for understanding irony. We found that individuals with DS reached the same level of irony comprehension as the TD control group and that they understood ironic criticisms much better than ironic compliments. For both groups, only linguistic abilities correlated with irony comprehension, with no influence of ToM. We discuss the implications of these results for future research on pragmatic abilities in DS, and for irony comprehension in general.

Irony, Prosody, and Social Impressions of Affective Stance

ABSTRACTIn spoken discourse, understanding irony requires the apprehension of subtle cues, such as the speaker’s tone of voice (prosody), which often reveal the speaker’s affective stance toward the listener in the context of the utterance. To shed light on the interplay of linguistic content and prosody on impressions of spoken criticisms and compliments (both literal and ironic), 40 participants rated the friendliness of the speaker in three separate conditions of attentional focus (No focus, Prosody focus, and Content focus). When the linguistic content was positive (“You are such an awesome driver!”), the perceived critical or friendly stance of the speaker was influenced predominantly by prosody. However, when the linguistic content was negative (“You are such a lousy driver!”), the speaker was always perceived as less friendly, even for ironic compliments that were meant to be teasing (i.e., positive stance). Our results highlight important asymmetries in how listeners use prosody and attend to different speech-related channels to form impressions of interpersonal stance for ironic criticisms (e.g., sarcasm) versus ironic compliments (e.g., teasing).

The development of irony comprehension

The development of irony comprehension

Shy individuals’ interpretations of counterfactual verbal irony

ABSTRACTCounterfactual verbal irony, an evaluative form of figurative language wherein a speaker’s intended meaning is opposite to the literal meaning of his or her words, is used to serve many social goals. Despite recent calls for theoretical accounts to include the factors that influence irony interpretation, few studies have examined the individual differences that may impact verbal irony interpretation. The present study examined whether adults with elevated shyness would generate more negative interpretations of ironic statements. University students with varying degrees of shyness listened to stories (accompanied by comics) wherein one character made literal or ironic criticisms or compliments to another character. Participants then appraised each speaker’s belief and attitude. Self-reported shyness did not predict comprehension of the counterfactual nature of ironic statements. However, shyer adults rated speakers who made ironic compliments as being meaner than did adults low in shyness. Thus, while understanding that ironic speakers intended to communicate their true beliefs, shyer individuals construed the social meaning of irony more negatively. Such interpretive biases may lead shy individuals to more frequently take offense at ironic compliments and experience more negativity in social interactions.

Medial prefrontal cortex stimulation modulates irony processing as indexed by the N400

ABSTRACTIn this study, we investigated whether the ERP responses observed during a verbal irony comprehension task might represent the cortical manifestation of the Medial Prefrontal Cortex (MPFC) activity. We performed a tDCS-EEG study in which we analyzed the effects of tDCS polarities (anode, cathode, sham) over the MPFC during a verbal irony task. We presented visual short stories portraying everyday situations followed by written statements in either an ironic or literal condition, whose meaning was referred to in the previous context. We manipulated the valence of the stimuli by presenting positive sentences or negative sentences in the ironic and literal conditions. The results revealed that the participants who received the anodal stimulation showed no differences in the N400 amplitude in response to the literal and the ironic condition. This could suggest that anodal stimulation has modulatory effects on N400 responses during irony comprehension. Our results indicated that the MPFC might be critical in accessing ironic information at the initial stage of irony comprehension. Finally, we found that the ironic compliments were more difficult to understand compared to the literal ones, suggesting that irony comprehension is affected by the valence of the information presented.

How Do Children Respond to Verbal Irony in Face-to-Face Communication? The Development of Mode Adoption Across Middle Childhood

A number of studies have now examined the development of children's appreciation for verbal irony, typically by testing children's comprehension of the ironic speaker's belief and intent. This article examines a topic that has received much less attention: children's ability to produce irony in context-appropriate ways. The study presents 7- to 11-year-olds with brief stories that were each followed by an experimenter's literal or ironic remark. Of critical interest was whether children would show sensitivity to the convention of mode adoption by replying to irony with irony of their own. Results showed that children's overall rate of mode adoption was 8.67%. When ironic criticisms were presented (Experiment 1), irony was employed more frequently in the responses of older children than in the responses of younger children. When ironic compliments were presented (Experiment 2), no age effects were observed in children's ironic responses. Comprehension data show that the complimentary form of irony was more difficult for children to grasp.

Understanding Verbal Irony: Clues From Interpretation of Direct and Indirect Ironic Remarks

Recently, irony researchers have emphasized that irony interpretation involves metarepresentational inferencing in order that the perceiver can determine whether the speaker's attitude is counterfactual to their statement. This research investigated whether the perception of irony also depends on the extent to which an ironic statement is suitably face-threatening in its particular context. Target statements were direct and indirect ironic remarks, and context conditions were modulated on 2 dimensions: context incongruity (strong vs. weak) and speaker–target relationship (close vs. distant). This study examined interpretations of ironic criticisms (Experiments 1 and 2) and ironic compliments (Experiment 3). Results showed evidence that suitable face-threat was important to a perception of irony: In some contexts (strongly incongruent context and close speaker–target relationships), irony was perceived more strongly for direct ironic remarks; and in other contexts (weakly incongruent context and distant speaker–target relationships), irony was perceived more strongly for indirect ironic remarks.

How do typically developing children grasp the meaning of verbal irony?

Ironic remarks are an important aspect of everyday communication. The inferences involved in understanding a speaker's irony can be complex. How, then, do children develop the ability to understand verbal irony? The present study was designed to address this issue. Participants were 70 six- to ten-year-old children. Each child was presented with ironic criticisms and ironic compliments in the context of short puppet shows and several aspects of comprehension were assessed: appreciation of the speaker's belief, speaker's intent to tease, and speaker's attitude. The results suggest the following developmental progression: For ironic criticisms, speaker belief understanding emerges first, before understanding of speaker's intent to tease and speaker's attitude. These latter two components emerge together. For ironic compliments, speaker belief understanding emerges with understanding of the speaker's intent to tease, and an understanding of speaker attitude emerges later. We offer suggestions as to the factors that are important to development of these skills.

How Sarcastic are You?

In the present research, the authors examined the effects of self-perceived use of sarcasm on the production, interpretation, and processing of verbal irony. Accordingly, they first devised and evaluated a sarcasm self-report scale (SSS). In Experiment 1, results showed that participants’ self-perceived use of sarcastic irony (as assessed by the SSS) predicted their use of ironic statements in a production task and was related to their interpretation of ironic criticisms and ironic compliments. In Experiment 2, results showed that participants’ perceived use of irony was related to their processing of ironic statements: SSS scores were related to relative processing speeds for literal and ironic statements. The results of these experiments indicate that there are individual differences in purported use of sarcasm that influence interpretation and processing of verbal irony.

Does Irony Go Better With Friends?

Common ground between speaker and addressee is thought to be important to comprehension of verbal irony (e.g., Gibbs, 1986). We investigated the effects of one type of common ground (solidary relationships, which are close, liking, and mutually supportive) on production and interpretation of ironic insults and ironic compliments. The relationship manipulation (solidary vs. nonsolidary) influenced participants' ratings of several pragmatic functions of irony, including humor and teasing. This manipulation was particularly important to the interpretation and production of ironic compliments and less important to ironic insults. We argue that a solidary relationship between speaker and addressee facilitates the metarepresentational inferences needed to understand irony.

Children's Perceptions of the Social Functions of Verbal Irony

Verbal irony can serve many social functions: Speakers can mute the aggression conveyed by criticism or temper the praise conveyed by a compliment (the Tinge Hypothesis; Dews, Kaplan, & Winner, 1995), and speakers can also bring humor to a situation. A full understanding of ironic language requires one to make complex inferences about speaker intent, a task that can be challenging for children. This study was devised as a developmental test of the Tinge Hypothesis. Two experiments assessed 5- to 6- and 7- to 8-year-old children's abilities to detect and interpret the aggressive and humorous intent of speakers who made ironic criticisms, literal criticisms, ironic compliments, and literal compliments depicted in puppet shows. When children detected the use of irony, their aggression ratings provided support for the Tinge Hypothesis but their humor ratings indicated that the humor function was not recognized.

Does Sarcasm Always Sting? Investigating the Impact of Ironic Insults and Ironic Compliments

In previous research, there have been inconsistent findings regarding interpretation of ironic insults. Colston (1997) reported that irony enhances the criticism conveyed by a more direct insult, but Dews and Winner (1995; Dews, Kaplan & Winner, 1995) reported that irony mutes the criticism conveyed by more direct insult. In this study we examined the possibility that the perception of ironic insults depends on whether participants were asked to judge speaker intent (e.g., mocking) or social impression (e.g., politeness). Results supported this possibility because ironic insults were perceived to be more mocking, but also more polite, than direct insults. In contrast, ironic compliments were perceived to be more mocking and less polite than direct compliments.

Children's Comprehension of Critical and Complimentary Forms of Verbal Irony

The existing research on children's comprehension of verbal irony has focused exclusively on children's understanding of ironic criticisms. Two experiments examined 5- and 6-year-old children's ability to detect the nonliteral nature and intended meaning of both ironic criticism and ironic praise as depicted in short, videotaped stories. Considered together, the results from these experiments permit several conclusions: First, the data confirm earlier research suggesting that children's detection of nonliteral utterances and their interpretation of the speaker's pragmatic intent are separable components of early irony comprehension. Second, children's ability to detect ironic statements is asymmetrical across critical and complimentary forms of irony. Finally, although children more readily detect ironic criticisms, explicit echoic cues play an important role in facilitating uniquely their detection of ironic compliments. We discuss these results in the context of social pragmatic theories of early communicative development (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Tomasello, 1992, 1995) and with reference to a recent allusional-pretense model of irony comprehension proposed for mature speakers (Kumon-Nakamura, Glucksberg, & Brown, 1995).